I feel like two people this morning - this is a feeling I've become intimately familiar with and I dare say, hate with a fervent passion. Most of the time (now), I'm fine with who/how I am - curious, spontaneous and in love with life. But I sometimes see in the mirror a monkey I've been trying to shake off my back for years... bitter, angry, self-loathing and full of vitriol. So many times, I've felt like a spectator as I watched myself explode with uncontrolled, directionless rage.
I've tried time and again to resolve these issues by simply running away from my past - in the hope that getting away from places and forgetting the years spent in those places would somehow eliminate the parts of me that those places created. This approach brought limited measures of success but often at a high price: memories reduced to a mere record of events, if not buried under layers of fear and denial - so much of my childhood (and it was a good one too in so many ways) wiped away by my own hand, good people put through the grinder for counting me a friend - so much to regret, so much to be ashamed of. And scant progress to show for it all. Through all that, I felt adrift, listless - never once feeling like I belonged.
All that changed once I started on my research - I finally had an avenue to channel my greatest passion - science - and it felt like I finally had a reason to breathe. I realized then that the things I was trying to run away from were deep within me - my own anger and hate. Graduate school brought with it solitude and half a world of physical separation from my past. It was ironic that it was as a stranger in a strange new land that I felt most at home in years. Living alone afforded me time for introspection. As I delved deeper into my own nature in private, I taught myself to present the world with an unerringly balanced facade for the purpose of going on with my life (as best possible) in the meanwhile.
For a while I fell into the trap of lulling myself by falling for the very charade I presented to the world. But I was able to cut through that veil eventually and the result has been my latest and I want to believe, most fruitful attempt at discovering myself. I've come a ways in terms of making peace with the scary parts of myself and the unpleasant parts of my past - but I still have miles to go. And there has always been the temptation of taking the easy way out - severing all permanent ties and seeking comfort in isolation. But all I need do is think of the people who've seen my worst face and still stuck by me - all thoughts of isolation are banished. In their place is a renewed determination to make it the rest of the way. So, I shall keep my head down and carry on. Giving up is not an option.
I've tried time and again to resolve these issues by simply running away from my past - in the hope that getting away from places and forgetting the years spent in those places would somehow eliminate the parts of me that those places created. This approach brought limited measures of success but often at a high price: memories reduced to a mere record of events, if not buried under layers of fear and denial - so much of my childhood (and it was a good one too in so many ways) wiped away by my own hand, good people put through the grinder for counting me a friend - so much to regret, so much to be ashamed of. And scant progress to show for it all. Through all that, I felt adrift, listless - never once feeling like I belonged.
All that changed once I started on my research - I finally had an avenue to channel my greatest passion - science - and it felt like I finally had a reason to breathe. I realized then that the things I was trying to run away from were deep within me - my own anger and hate. Graduate school brought with it solitude and half a world of physical separation from my past. It was ironic that it was as a stranger in a strange new land that I felt most at home in years. Living alone afforded me time for introspection. As I delved deeper into my own nature in private, I taught myself to present the world with an unerringly balanced facade for the purpose of going on with my life (as best possible) in the meanwhile.
For a while I fell into the trap of lulling myself by falling for the very charade I presented to the world. But I was able to cut through that veil eventually and the result has been my latest and I want to believe, most fruitful attempt at discovering myself. I've come a ways in terms of making peace with the scary parts of myself and the unpleasant parts of my past - but I still have miles to go. And there has always been the temptation of taking the easy way out - severing all permanent ties and seeking comfort in isolation. But all I need do is think of the people who've seen my worst face and still stuck by me - all thoughts of isolation are banished. In their place is a renewed determination to make it the rest of the way. So, I shall keep my head down and carry on. Giving up is not an option.
